Having rediscovered the work of Peter Gill, who was big when I was a drama student first time round, with The York Realist, reviewed below, I was keen to read more. I picked up Original Sin, first produced at the Sheffield Crucible in May 2002. This is, in fact, the edition published to accompany the premiere.
Original Sin is Gill's take on Frank Wedekind's Pandora plays, Pandora's Box and Earth Spirit, which I had tried to find when I was originally a drama student and couldn't find. I still haven't read them but they are now on my must-read lisr.
Pandora, of course, is famously Louise Brooks in the Pabst movie. Gill shifts the timeframe back to the era of Oscar Wilde. Gill's object of desire is Angel, who has risen from the gutter to be the adored idol of society. He has been raised by newspaper magnate Lionel Southerdown and is now being painted by society artist Eugene Black. From there, everything falls down. Black kills himself for love of Angel and Southerdown manipulates Angel into shooting and killing him.
Angel flees to France with his adopted brother, Henry Southerdown, now his lover. Henry is ruined in a Stock Exchange scandal and Angel ends up touting for trade in a Whitechapel slum, where he shares the ultimate, gruesome fate of Wedekind's Pandora.
Gill's play is epic in length, scope and achievement. Everyone around Angel is motivated by sex and money, yet Gill is such an expert in characterisation that Angel is absolutely no angel. I kind of always knew his ultimate fate (I might not have read Wedekind's original but I have read a good deal about it) but was intrigued to discover how it came about. That's the whole point.
I was impressed by The York Realisr. I was extremely impressed with Original Sin.
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